The Little Albert Experiment

Watson and Rayner's classic (and controversial) experiment

One of the most famous figures in psychology history isn't a psychologist at all. "Little
Albert," as he was called, was the pseudonym of a young boy at the center of the infamous
psychology experiment in which he was conditioned to fear rats—a fear that also extended
to other similar objects, including fluffy white toys and a white beard.

The Little Albert experiment was a famous psychology experiment conducted by behaviorist
1
John B. Watson and graduate student Rosalie Rayner. Previously, Russian physiologist Ivan
Pavlov had conducted experiments demonstrating the conditioning process in dogs. Watson
took Pavlov's research a step further by showing that emotional reactions could be
classically conditioned in people.

Keep reading to learn more about what happened in the Little Albert experiment, what it
reveals about the conditioning process, and why it is considered so controversial.

What Happened in the Little Albert Experiment?

The experiment's participant was a child that Watson and Rayner called "Albert B." but is
known popularly today as Little Albert. When Little Albert was 9 months old, Watson and
Rayner exposed him to a series of stimuli, including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, masks,
and burning newspapers, and observed the boy's reactions.

At the experiment's outset, the little boy showed no fear of any objects he was shown. What
Watson did next changed everything. The next time Albert was exposed to the rat, Watson
made a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer.

Naturally, the child began to cry after hearing the loud noise. After repeatedly pairing the
white rat with the loud noise, Albert began to expect a frightening noise whenever he saw the
white rat. Soon, Albert began to cry simply after seeing the rat.

Watson and Rayner wrote: "The instant the rat was shown, the baby began to cry. Almost
instantly he turned sharply to the left, fell over on [his] left side, raised himself on all fours
and began to crawl away so rapidly that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the
edge of the table."

It's a textbook example of how classical conditioning works. In some cases, these
frightening experiences can cause a lasting fears, such as with phobias.

Classical Conditioning in the Little Albert Experiment

The Little Albert experiment is a great example of how classical conditioning can be used to
condition an emotional response. Here's how the process works:

​ eutral Stimulus: A stimulus that does not initially elicit a response (the white rat).
N
​Unconditioned Stimulus: A stimulus that elicits a reflexive response (the loud noise).
​Unconditioned Response: A natural reaction to a given stimulus (fear).
​Conditioned Stimulus: A stimulus that elicits a response after repeatedly being paired with
an unconditioned stimulus (the white rat).
​Conditioned Response: The response caused by the conditioned stimulus (fear).

Stimulus Generalization in the Little Albert Exerpiment

In addition to demonstrating that emotional responses could be conditioned in humans,
2
Watson and Rayner also observed a phenomenon known as stimulus generalization.
Stimulus generalization happens when things similar to the conditioned stimulus evoke a
similar response.

After conditioning, Albert feared not just the white rat, but a wide variety of similar white
objects as well. His fear included other furry objects, including Raynor's fur coat and Watson
wearing a Santa Claus beard.

Criticism and Ethical Problems With the Little Albert Experiment

While the experiment is one of psychology's most famous and is included in nearly every
introductory psychology course, it is widely criticized for several reasons. First, the
experimental design and process were not carefully constructed. Watson and Rayner did not
develop an objective means to evaluate Albert's reactions, instead of relying on their own
subjective interpretations.

The experiment also raises many ethical concerns. Little Albert was harmed during this
experiment—he left the experiment with a previously nonexistent fear. By today's
standards, the Little Albert experiment would not be permitted.

What Happened to Little Albert?

The question of what happened to Little Albert has long been one of psychology's mysteries.
Before Watson and Rayner could attempt to "cure" Little Albert, he and his mother moved
away. Some envisioned the boy growing into a man with a strange phobia of white, furry
objects.

In 2009, researchers published the results of their attempt to track down the boy's identity.
As reported in American Psychologist, a seven-year search led by psychologist Hall P. Beck led
1
to the discovery of a child the researchers believed might be Little Albert. After tracking
down and locating the original experiments and the possible identity of the boy's mother, it
was suggested that Little Albert was actually a boy named Douglas Merritte.

Unfortunately, the researchers discovered that Douglas had died on May 10, 1925, at the age
of six, of hydrocephalus (a build-up of fluid in his brain), which he had suffered from since
birth.
In 2012, Beck and Alan J. Fridlund reported that Douglas was not the healthy, normal child
3
Watson described in his 1920 experiment. Instead, they suggested that Watson may have
known about and deliberately concealed the boy's neurological condition. If true, these
findings would have cast a shadow over Watson's legacy, and deepened the ethical and moral
issues of this well-known experiment.

In 2014, however, doubt was cast over Beck and Fridlund findings when researchers
4
presented evidence that a boy named William Barger was the real Little Albert. Barger was
born on the same day as Merritte to a wet nurse who worked at the same hospital as
Merritte's mother. While his first name was William, he was known his entire life by his
middle name—Albert.

Takeaways
While experts continue to debate the true identity of the boy at the center of Watson's
experiment, there is little doubt that Little Albert left a lasting impression on the field of
psychology. The experiments contributed to our understanding of the classical conditioning
process. It also demonstrated that fear could be conditioned, which has helped mental health
experts better understand how conditions like specific phobias and post-traumatic stress
disorder form.

The Schacter and Singer Experiment on Emotion

Two-Factor Theory
The Two-Factor Theory of emotion states that emotion is experienced in a combination consisting of
exposure to stimuli, physiological arousal, cognitively labeling the emotion, and just overall
experiencing the emotion. Stanley Schachter and Jerome E. Singer coined the theory and decided to
test it in 1962 in what would later be known as the Schachter and Singer Experiment.

The Experiment
The Schacter and Singer Experiment was conducted at Columbia University with 184 male subjects.
Participants were split into four different groups and told that they'd be injected with a vitamin before
having their eyesight tested. In reality, three of the test groups were injected with epinephrine, or
adrenaline. Depending on which group they were in, subjects were informed of the correct side effects
they'd experience (like an increased heart rate), misinformed about what symptoms to expect (like
itching and headaches), or not informed of potential side effects at all. Members of the fourth group,
the control, were instead injected with a placebo and not informed of potential side effects.

Next, participants were placed in two separate rooms and told to wait with fellow participants. In
reality, the other participants were confederates of the experiment. In one room, the confederate
would act angry, while in the second room, the confederate would act euphoric and happy. The key to
this experiment was seeing how participants would respond.

Schachter and Singer found that participants uninformed about the injection's true side effects felt
either happier or angrier compared to informed participants. Since participants didn't know the
injection would affect their physiological arousal, they interpreted such reactions based on their
confederate's mood. If their confederate was angry, they themselves became angry, and similarly, if
their confederate behaved euphorically, they themselves became happy.

Conclusions
The experiment showed that people rely on their environmental cues to explain how they're feeling.
All experimental groups had the same physiological responses to their injections and relied on
available data to explain them. Informed participants could match their reactions to the side effects
they were told of and thus didn't experience any heightened emotions. Uninformed participants did
not have that knowledge and therefore relied on their confederates' reactions. The divide of emotional
response between informed and uninformed participants shows that cognitive labeling does play a
significant role in our feelings.
Replications of the original experiment have produced inconsistent results. One study found that
participants experienced negative emotions regardless of their confederate's apparent emotional
state. Most studies didn't witness significant emotional changes, partly because of difficulty
replicating this experiment. Also, a major criticism is that not everyone experiences emotions in
sequential order. At times, there is so much sensory overload that it is not realistic for people to pause
and label what they're experiencing —they simply feel it, perhaps cognitively identifying their
emotions in the aftermath.

Everyone experiences emotions differently, and they're influenced by many factors, such as their prior
knowledge, awareness, and surroundings. If you don't experience anger or euphoria the same way as
the next person, that's completely normal. Maybe you have a higher inclination to process feelings in
the moment, or perhaps you tend to be very aware of complicating factors that could be affecting your
mood. If there's one thing the Schacter and Singer Experiment proved, it's that emotions aren't as
simple as we make them out to be.
Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo’s Famous Study
BySaul McLeod, PhDUpdated onNovember 17, 2023

Aim

Zimbardo and his colleagues (1973) were interested in finding out whether the
brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic
personalities of the guards (i.e., dispositional) or had more to do with the prison
environment (i.e., situational).

For example, prisoners and guards may have personalities that make conflict
inevitable, with prisoners lacking respect for law and order and guards being
domineering and aggressive.

Alternatively, prisoners and guards may behave in a hostile manner due to the
rigid power structure of the social environment in prisons.

Zimbardo predicted the situation made people act the way they do rather than their
disposition (personality).
Procedure
To study people’s roles in prison situations, Zimbardo converted a basement of
the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison.

He advertised asking for volunteers to participate in a study of the psychological

effects of prison life.

The 75 applicants who answered the ad were given diagnostic interviews and
personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical
disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse.

24 men judged to be the most physically & mentally stable, the most mature, &
the least involved in antisocial behaviors were chosen to participate.

The participants did not know each other prior to the study and were paid $15
per day to take part in the experiment.

Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard in a

simulated prison environment. There were two reserves, and one dropped out,
finally leaving ten prisoners and 11 guards.

Prisoners were treated like every other criminal, being arrested at their own
homes, without warning, and taken to the local police station. They were
fingerprinted, photographed and ‘booked.’

Then they were blindfolded and driven to the psychology department of

Stanford University, where Zimbardo had had the basement set out as a prison,
with barred doors and windows, bare walls and small cells. Here the
deindividuation process began.

When the prisoners arrived at the prison they were stripped naked, deloused,
had all their personal possessions removed and locked away, and were given
prison clothes and bedding. They were issued a uniform, and referred to by their
number only.

The use of ID numbers was a way to make prisoners feel anonymous. Each
prisoner had to be called only by his ID number and could only refer to himself
and the other prisoners by number.

Their clothes comprised a smock with their number written on it, but no
underclothes. They also had a tight nylon cap to cover their hair, and a locked
chain around one ankle.

All guards were dressed in identical uniforms of khaki, and they carried a
whistle around their neck and a billy club borrowed from the police. Guards also
wore special sunglasses, to make eye contact with prisoners impossible.

Three guards worked shifts of eight hours each (the other guards remained on
call). Guards were instructed to do whatever they thought was necessary to
maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the
prisoners. No physical violence was permitted.

Zimbardo observed the behavior of the prisoners and guards (as a researcher),
and also acted as a prison warden.
Within a very short time both guards and prisoners were settling into their new roles,
with the guards adopting theirs quickly and easily.

Asserting Authority

Within hours of beginning the experiment, some guards began to harass

prisoners. At 2:30 A.M. prisoners were awakened from sleep by blasting
whistles for the first of many “counts.”

The counts served as a way to familiarize the prisoners with their numbers.
More importantly, they provided a regular occasion for the guards to exercise
control over the prisoners.

The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behavior too. They talked about
prison issues a great deal of the time. They ‘told tales’ of each other to the
guards.

They started taking the prison rules very seriously, as though they were there for
the prisoners’ benefit and infringement would spell disaster for all of them.
Some even began siding with the guards against prisoners who did not obey the
rules.

Physical Punishment

The prisoners were taunted with insults and petty orders, they were given pointless and
boring tasks to accomplish, and they were generally dehumanized.

Push-ups were a common form of physical punishment imposed by the guards.

One of the guards stepped on the prisoners” backs while they did push-ups, or
made other prisoners sit on the backs of fellow prisoners doing their push-ups.
Asserting Independence

Because the first day passed without incident, the guards were surprised and totally
unprepared for the rebellion which broke out on the morning of the second day.

During the second day of the experiment, the prisoners removed their stocking
caps, ripped off their numbers, and barricaded themselves inside the cells by
putting their beds against the door.

The guards called in reinforcements. The three guards who were waiting on
stand-by duty came in and the night shift guards voluntarily remained on duty.

Putting Down the Rebellion

The guards retaliated by using a fire extinguisher which shot a stream of skin-chilling
carbon dioxide, and they forced the prisoners away from the doors. Next, the guards
broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked and took the beds out.

The ringleaders of the prisoner rebellion were placed into solitary confinement.
After this, the guards generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners.
Special Privileges

One of the three cells was designated as a “privilege cell.” The three prisoners least
involved in the rebellion were given special privileges. The guards gave them back their
uniforms and beds and allowed them to wash their hair and brush their
teeth.

Privileged prisoners also got to eat special food in the presence of the other
prisoners who had temporarily lost the privilege of eating. The effect was to
break the solidarity among prisoners.

Consequences of the Rebellion

Over the next few days, the relationships between the guards and the prisoners changed,
with a change in one leading to a change in the other. Remember that the guards were
firmly in control and the prisoners were totally dependent on them.

As the prisoners became more dependent, the guards became more derisive
towards them. They held the prisoners in contempt and let the prisoners know
it. As the guards’ contempt for them grew, the prisoners became more
submissive.

As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive
and assertive. They demanded ever greater obedience from the prisoners. The
prisoners were dependent on the guards for everything, so tried to find ways to
please the guards, such as telling tales on fellow prisoners.

Prisoner #8612

Less than 36 hours into the experiment, Prisoner #8612 began suffering from acute
emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage.

After a meeting with the guards where they told him he was weak, but offered
him “informant” status, #8612 returned to the other prisoners and said “You
can”t leave. You can’t quit.”
Soon #8612 “began to act ‘crazy,’ to scream, to curse, to go into a rage that
seemed out of control.” It wasn’t until this point that the psychologists realized
they had to let him out.

A Visit from Parents

The next day, the guards held a visiting hour for parents and friends. They were worried
that when the parents saw the state of the jail, they might insist on taking their sons
home. Guards washed the prisoners, had them clean and polish their cells, fed them a big
dinner and played music on the intercom.

After the visit, rumors spread of a mass escape plan. Afraid that they would lose
the prisoners, the guards and experimenters tried to enlist help and facilities of
the Palo Alto police department.

The guards again escalated the level of harassment, forcing them to do menial,
repetitive work such as cleaning toilets with their bare hands.

Catholic Priest

Zimbardo invited a Catholic priest who had been a prison chaplain to evaluate
how realistic our prison situation was. Half of the prisoners introduced
themselves by their number rather than name.

The chaplain interviewed each prisoner individually. The priest told them the
only way they would get out was with the help of a lawyer.

Prisoner #819

Eventually, while talking to the priest, #819 broke down and began to cry
hysterically, just like two previously released prisoners had.
The psychologists removed the chain from his foot, the cap off his head, and
told him to go and rest in a room that was adjacent to the prison yard. They told
him they would get him some food and then take him to see a doctor.

While this was going on, one of the guards lined up the other prisoners and had
them chant aloud:

“Prisoner #819 is a bad prisoner. Because of what Prisoner #819 did, my cell is a mess,
Mr. Correctional Officer.”

The psychologists realized #819 could hear the chanting and went back into the
room where they found him sobbing uncontrollably. The psychologists tried to
get him to agree to leave the experiment, but he said he could not leave because
the others had labeled him a bad prisoner.

Back to Reality

At that point, Zimbardo said, “Listen, you are not #819. You are [his name], and
my name is Dr. Zimbardo. I am a psychologist, not a prison superintendent, and
this is not a real prison. This is just an experiment, and those are students, not
prisoners, just like you. Let’s go.”

He stopped crying suddenly, looked up and replied, “Okay, let’s go,“ as if

nothing had been wrong.

An End to the Experiment

Zimbardo (1973) had intended that the experiment should run for two weeks,
but on the sixth day, it was terminated, due to the emotional breakdowns of
prisoners, and excessive aggression of the guards.

Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. brought in to conduct interviews

with the guards and prisoners, strongly objected when she saw the prisoners
being abused by the guards.
Filled with outrage, she said, “It’s terrible what you are doing to these boys!”
Out of 50 or more outsiders who had seen our prison, she was the only one who
ever questioned its morality.

Zimbardo (2008) later noted, “It wasn’t until much later that I realized how far
into my prison role I was at that point — that I was thinking like a prison
superintendent rather than a research psychologist.“

This led him to prioritize maintaining the experiment’s structure over the
well-being and ethics involved, thereby highlighting the blurring of roles and
the profound impact of the situation on human behavior.

Here’s a quote that illustrates how Philip Zimbardo, initially the principal
investigator, became deeply immersed in his role as the “Stanford Prison
Superintendent (April 19, 2011):

“By the third day, when the second prisoner broke down, I had already slipped into or
been transformed into the role of “Stanford Prison Superintendent.” And in that role, I
was no longer the principal investigator, worried about ethics.

When a prisoner broke down, what was my job? It was to replace him with somebody on
our standby list. And that’s what I did. There was a weakness in the study in not
separating those two roles. I should only have been the principal investigator, in charge
of two graduate students and one undergraduate.”

Conclusion
According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment revealed how
people will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the
roles are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards.

Because the guards were placed in a position of authority, they began to act in
ways they would not usually behave in their normal lives.
The “prison” environment was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal
behavior (none of the participants who acted as guards showed sadistic
tendencies before the study).

Therefore, the findings support the situational explanation of behavior rather

than the dispositional one.

Zimbardo proposed that two processes can explain the prisoner’s “final
submission.”

Deindividuation may explain the behavior of the participants; especially the

guards. This is a state when you become so immersed in the norms of the group
that you lose your sense of identity and personal responsibility.

The guards may have been so sadistic because they did not feel what happened
was down to them personally – it was a group norm. They also may have lost
their sense of personal identity because of the uniform they wore.

Also, learned helplessness could explain the prisoner’s submission to the

guards. The prisoners learned that whatever they did had little effect on what
happened to them. In the mock prison the unpredictable decisions of the guards
led the prisoners to give up responding.

After the prison experiment was terminated, Zimbardo interviewed the

participants. Here’s an excerpt:

Most of the guards found it difficult to believe that they had behaved in the
brutal ways that they had. Many said they hadn’t known this side of them
existed or that they were capable of such things.

The prisoners, too, couldn’t believe that they had responded in the submissive,
cowering, dependent way they had. Several claimed to be assertive types
normally.
When asked about the guards, they described the usual three stereotypes that
can be found in any prison: some guards were good, some were tough but fair,
and some were cruel.

A further explanation for the behavior of the participants can be described in

terms of reinforcement. The escalation of aggression and abuse by the guards
could be seen as being due to the positive reinforcement they received both
from fellow guards and intrinsically in terms of how good it made them feel to
have so much power.

Similarly, the prisoners could have learned through negative reinforcement that
if they kept their heads down and did as they were told, they could avoid further
unpleasant experiences.

Critical Evaluation

Ecological validity

The Stanford Prison Experiment is criticized for lacking ecological validity in its
attempt to simulate a real prison environment. Specifically, the “prison” was
merely a setup in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology department.

The student “guards” lacked professional training, and the experiment’s

duration was much shorter than real prison sentences. Furthermore, the
participants, who were college students, didn’t reflect the diverse backgrounds
typically found in actual prisons in terms of ethnicity, education, and
socioeconomic status.

None had prior prison experience, and they were chosen due to their mental
stability and low antisocial tendencies. Additionally, the mock prison lacked
spaces for exercise or rehabilitative activities.

Demand characteristics
Demand characteristics could explain the findings of the study. Most of the guards later
claimed they were simply acting.

Because the guards and prisoners were playing a role, their behavior may not be
influenced by the same factors which affect behavior in real life.

This means the study’s findings cannot be reasonably generalized to real life, such as
prison settings. I.e, the study has low ecological validity.

One of the biggest criticisms is that strong demand characteristics confounded

the study. Banuazizi and Movahedi (1975) found that the majority of
respondents, when given a description of the study, were able to guess the
hypothesis and predict how participants were expected to behave.

This suggests participants may have simply been playing out expected roles
rather than genuinely conforming to their assigned identities.

In addition, revelations by Zimbardo (2007) indicate he actively encouraged the

guards to be cruel and oppressive in his orientation instructions prior to the
start of the study. For example, telling them “they [the prisoners] will be able to
do nothing and say nothing that we don’t permit.”

He also tacitly approved of abusive behaviors as the study progressed. This

deliberate cueing of how participants should act, rather than allowing behavior
to unfold naturally, indicates the study findings were likely a result of strong
demand characteristics rather than insightful revelations about human
behavior.

However, there is considerable evidence that the participants did react to the
situation as though it was real. For example, 90% of the prisoners’ private
conversations, which were monitored by the researchers, were on the prison
conditions, and only 10% of the time were their conversations about life outside
of the prison.
The guards, too, rarely exchanged personal information during their relaxation
breaks – they either talked about ‘problem prisoners,’ other prison topics, or did
not talk at all. The guards were always on time and even worked overtime for no
extra pay.

When the prisoners were introduced to a priest, they referred to themselves by

their prison number, rather than their first name. Some even asked him to get a
lawyer to help get them out.

Fourteen years after his experience as prisoner 8612 in the Stanford Prison
Experiment, Douglas Korpi, now a prison psychologist, reflected on his time
and stated (Musen and Zimbardo 1992):

Sample bias

The study may also lack population validity as the sample comprised US male
students. The study’s findings cannot be applied to female prisons or those from
other countries. For example, America is an individualist culture (where people
are generally less conforming), and the results may be different in collectivist
cultures (such as Asian countries).

All participants completed personality measures assessing: aggression,

authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, social dominance, empathy,
and altruism. Participants also answered questions on mental health and
criminal history to screen out any issues as per the original SPE.

Results showed that volunteers for the prison study, compared to the control
group, scored significantly higher on aggressiveness, authoritarianism,
Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance. They scored significantly
lower on empathy and altruism.

A follow-up role-playing study found that self-presentation biases could not

explain these differences. Overall, the findings suggest that volunteering for the
prison study was influenced by personality traits associated with abusive
tendencies.
Stanley Milgram Shock Experiment
BySaul McLeod, PhDUpdated onNovember 14, 2023
Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, carried out one of the
most famous studies of obedience in psychology.

He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience

to authority and personal conscience.

Milgram (1963) examined justifications for acts of genocide offered by

those accused at the World War II, Nuremberg War Criminal trials. Their
defense often was based on obedience – that they were just following
orders from their superiors.

The experiments began in July 1961, a year after the trial of Adolf
Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiment to answer the
question:

Milgram (1963) wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly

obedient to authority figures, as this was a common explanation for the
Nazi killings in World War II.

Milgram selected participants for his experiment by newspaper

advertising for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale
University.

The procedure was that the participant was paired with another person
and they drew lots to find out who would be the ‘learner’ and who would
be the ‘teacher.’ The draw was fixed so that the participant was always the
teacher, and the learner was one of Milgram’s confederates (pretending to
be a real participant).
The learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace) was taken into a room and
had electrodes attached to his arms, and the teacher and researcher went
into a room next door that contained an electric shock generator and a row
of switches marked from 15 volts (Slight Shock) to 375 volts (Danger:
Severe Shock) to 450 volts (XXX).

The shocks in Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments were not real. The
“learners” were actors who were part of the experiment and did not
actually receive any shocks.

However, the “teachers” (the real participants of the study) believed the
shocks were real, which was crucial for the experiment to measure
obedience to authority figures even when it involved causing harm to
others.

Aim

Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in

obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person.

Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be

influenced into committing atrocities, for example, Germans in WWII.

Procedure

Volunteers were recruited for a controlled experiment investigating

“learning” (re: ethics: deception).
Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, whose jobs ranged
from unskilled to professional, from the New Haven area. They were paid
$4.50 for just turning up.

At the beginning of the experiment, they were introduced to another

participant, a confederate of the experimenter (Milgram).

They drew straws to determine their roles – learner or teacher – although

this was fixed, and the confederate was always the learner. There was also
an “experimenter” dressed in a gray lab coat, played by an actor (not
Milgram).

Two rooms in the Yale Interaction Laboratory were used – one for the
learner (with an electric chair) and another for the teacher and
experimenter with an electric shock generator.

The “learner” (Mr. Wallace) was strapped to a chair with electrodes.

After he has learned a list of word pairs given to him to learn, the “teacher”
tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its
partner/pair from a list of four possible choices.

The teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner
makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30
switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to
450 (danger – severe shock).
The learner gave mainly wrong answers (on purpose), and for each of
these, the teacher gave him an electric shock. When the teacher refused to
administer a shock, the experimenter was to give a series of orders/prods
to ensure they continued.

There were four standardized, scripted prods, and if one was not obeyed,
then the experimenter (Mr. Williams) read out the next prod, and so on.

If a prod was unsuccessful or the participant insisted on stopping, the

experimenter moved on to the next one, and so on.

The tone was firm but not impolite. The prods were repeated if the
participant showed reluctance to continue.

Prod 1 : Please continue / please go on.

Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.

Prod 3 : It is absolutely essential that you continue.

Prod 4 : You have no other choice but to continue.

These prods were to be used in order, and begun afresh for each new
attempt at defiance (Milgram, 1974, p. 21).

If the final prod was unsuccessful or the participant stopped reading

words, the study ended.
There were special prods if physical injury was asked about;

1. Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue

damage, so please
go on’ (ibid.)
2. ‘Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has
learned all the word
pairs correctly. So please go on’ (ibid., p. 22).

Results

65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e., teachers) continued to the highest

level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts.

Milgram did more than one experiment – he carried out 18 variations of

his study. All he did was alter the situation (IV) to see how this affected
obedience (DV).

Conclusion

The individual explanation for the behavior of the participants would be

that it was something about them as people that caused them to obey, but
a more realistic explanation is that the situation they were in influenced
them and caused them to behave in the way that they did.

Some aspects of the situation that may have influenced their behavior
include the formality of the location, the behavior of the experimenter,
and the fact that it was an experiment for which they had volunteered and
been paid.
Ordinary people are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure,
even to the extent of killing an innocent human being. Obedience to
authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up.

People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their
authority as morally right and/or legally based. This response to legitimate
authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family,
school, and workplace.
Halo Effect In Psychology: Definition and Examples
ByAyesh PereraUpdated onSeptember 7, 2023

The halo effect refers to the tendency to allow one specific trait or our overall
impression of a person, company or product to positively influence our judgment
of their other related traits.
For example: The halo effect refers to the tendency of people to rate attractive
individuals more favorably for their personality traits or characteristics as
compared to those who are less attractive.
The halo effect is a cognitive attribution bias, involving the unfounded
application of general judgment to a specific trait (Bethel, 2010; Ries,
2006).

For example, suppose you perceive a person to be warm and friendly. In

that case, you will attribute a number of other associated traits to that
person without any knowledge that they are true, such as they are
generous.

The word ‘halo’ stems from a religious concept. It refers to a circle of light
that is placed above or around the head of a holy person or saint in order
to honor his or her sanctity. Countless paintings from the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance period depict notable men and women with the heavenly
light of the halo.

These paintings, in effect, lead the observer to form favorable judgments

about their participants. Likewise, according to the psychological concept
of ‘the halo effect,’ one patent attribute of a certain person leads an
observer to draw a generalizing conclusion about that person (Ellis, 2018).

A single positive quality of a person may induce a positive predisposition

toward every aspect of that person while one negative attribute of that
person may induce an overall negative impression of that person.
While the former, which works in the positive direction, is the halo effect,
the latter, which works in the negative direction, as we will discuss later, is
called the horn effect.

Examples
In the Classroom

In the classroom, teachers are prone to the halo effect error when
evaluating their students. For example, a teacher might assume that a
well-behaved student is also bright and motivated before they have
objectively evaluated the student’s capacity in these areas.

A research study conducted in 1968 by Rosenthal and Jacobson

discovered that teachers generally develop expectations for their students
based not merely on the school record but also on their physical
appearance.

In the experiment, the teachers were provided with objective information,

such as a child’s academic potential along with a photo of an attractive or
unattractive girl or boy. The results indicated that the teachers’
expectations concerning the child’s academic future were significantly
associated with the child’s attractiveness.

Another more recent study compared the influence of attractiveness on

grading in university courses wherein the instructors either could or could
not observe the appearance of their students (Hernandez-Julian & Peters,
2017).

The results indicated that appearance could impact grading in traditional

classrooms; the students whose attractiveness was rated as above average
procured significantly lower grades in online classes wherein the
instructors could not observe the appearance of the students.
In the Workplace

A study by Parrett (2015) examined the impact of beauty on earnings

based on the tipping data of restaurants in Virginia. He discovered that
more attractive servers earned in tips nearly $1261 more annually than
their unattractive counterparts.

The primary explanation stemmed from female customers’ tipping the

better-looking females more than they did the unattractive females. The
customer taste-based discrimination herein mattered more for females
than for males.

Moreover, an investigation into educational attainment and

self-evaluations as mediating mechanisms for the impact of attractiveness
and intelligence on the financial strain and income seemed to indicate that
physical attractiveness could directly and indirectly impact income
(Judge, Hurst & Simon, 2009).

Academics and Intelligence

A study conducted by Landy and Sigall (1974) demonstrated the impact of

the halo effect on male judgments of female academic competence. In
their experiment, 60 male undergraduate students were asked to evaluate
an essay supposedly written by a first-year female college student.

The male undergraduates had to assess the quality of the prose and the
competence of the writer on a number of dimensions. The essays included
both poorly written samples and well-written versions.

Of the 60 male participants, 20 were given a photo of an unattractive

female as an author, another 20 were given a photo of an attractive female
as the author, and the final 20 were provided with no photos.
Moreover, while 30 of the participants read the well-written version, the
other 30 read the poorly-written sample. The results showed that the
participants had evaluated the writer least favorably when she was
unattractive and most favorably when she was attractive.

Furthermore, the effect of the writer’s attractiveness on the assessment of

her writing was most salient when the objective quality of the essay was
poor.

These results seemed to imply that the male readers were more inclined to
tolerate poor performance by attractive females than by unattractive
females.

A more recent study examined residual cues to intelligence in male and

female faces while also seeking to control for attractiveness associated
with the halo effect (Moore, Filippou & Perrett, 2011).

Out of over 300 photos of British college students, pictures of

high-intelligence composite faces were created from the photos rated the
highest in perceived intelligence, and pictures of low-intelligence
composite from the photos rated the lowest in perceived intelligence.

Then each group of photos was further divided into male and female faces.
The participants of the study, which comprised 92 males and 164 females,
were to rate the composite faces for attractiveness and intelligence.

For the male composites, the high-perceived intelligence group was rated
as notably more attractive than their low-perceived intelligence
counterparts.

Moreover, the attractive male faces were also perceived to be friendlier and funnier
by women as well as men. The results seemed to indicate that intelligence might be
a crucial component of attractiveness in male faces.

On Sentencing for Crimes

A study by Michael G. Efran which examined the effects of physical
attractiveness on the judgment of culpability and the severity of the
sentences recommended for criminals, discovered that attractive criminals
were likely to receive more lenient penalties than unattractive ones for the
same crime (Efran, 1974).

According to the study, the societal perception which holds that more
attractive individuals have better prospects for the future than less
attractive individuals supposedly accounted for this discrepancy.

However, another study on the same topic by Sigall and Ostrove

demonstrated more nuanced evidence (Sigall & Ostrove, 1975).

The experiment evaluated a hypothetical burglary and a hypothetical

swindle. While the former involved a woman unlawfully procuring a key
and embezzling $2200, the latter involved a woman inveigling a man to
invest $2200 in a corporation that did not exist.

In the burglary (unrelated to the criminal’s attractiveness), the attractive

defendant received a more lenient sentence than the unattractive one.
However, in the swindle (wherein the crime was connected to the
criminal’s attractiveness), the attractive defendant received the more
severe sentence.

The results seemed to suggest that the customary leniency given to the
more attractive criminal was reversed or negated when the nature of the
offense involved the criminal’s attractiveness.

Halo Effect Experiment

One classic experiment that demonstrates the halo effect in psychology is
the study conducted by Solomon Asch in 1946. In the experiment,
participants were shown a series of photographs of individuals and asked
to rate them on various personality traits.
The catch was that the participants were shown either an attractive or
unattractive photograph of the same person, randomly assigned.

The results revealed a clear halo effect. Participants consistently rated the
individuals in the attractive photographs as having more positive
personality traits than those in the unattractive photographs.

They attributed qualities such as intelligence, kindness, and social skills to

attractive individuals while assigning less favorable traits to the
unattractive ones.

This experiment demonstrated how the initial impression of physical

attractiveness influenced participants’ perception of other unrelated
qualities, illustrating the presence and impact of the halo effect in shaping
our judgments and evaluations of others.

The Reverse Halo Effect

The reverse halo effect refers to the phenomenon whereby positive perceptions of a
person can yield negative consequences (Edward, 2004).

The reverse halo effect, also known as the horns effect, is a cognitive bias
where a negative overall impression of a person influences the perception
of their specific traits or abilities. It is the opposite of the halo effect,
where a positive impression leads to positive perceptions.

In the reverse halo effect, negative traits or shortcomings of an individual

can overshadow their positive qualities, leading to biased judgments and
evaluations.

For instance, the horn effect may cause us to stereotype that someone who
is physically overweight is also lazy, although there is no evidence to
indicate that morality is tied to appearance.
An experiment conducted by Joseph Forgas on 246 individuals bears this
out. Following recalling happy or sad past events, the participants were
required to read a philosophical essay with an image of either a young
female or an old male attached as the writer.

The results showed that those who had recalled sad events and were,
therefore, in a negative mood rated lower for the young female. A negative
effect seemed to have eliminated or reversed the halo effect.

Furthermore, research also shows that both females and males who are
more attractive are likely to be more vane and egotistical (Eagly, Ashmore,
Makhijani & Longo, 1991).

Moreover, as noted above concerning the study of Sigall and Ostrove,

individuals who commit crimes using their good looks to their advantage
are more likely to receive harsher penalties than unattractive criminals
(Sigall & Ostrove, 1975).

Key Takeaways
● The halo effect also called the halo error, is a type of cognitive bias
whereby our perception of someone is positively influenced by our
opinions of that person’s other related traits.
● In his article, A Constant Error in Psychological Ratings, American
psychologist Edward Thorndike first recognized the halo effect
with empirical evidence in 1920.
● The halo effect can shape our perception of others’ intelligence and
competence, and its influence can be seen in many settings, from
the classroom to the courthouse.
● An example of the halo effect is the attractiveness stereotype,
which refers to the tendency to assign positive qualities and traits
to physically attractive people. People often judge attractive
individuals for higher morality, better mental health, and greater
 intelligence. This cognitive error in judgment reflects one’s
individual prejudices, ideology, and social perception.
● The reverse halo effect is the phenomenon whereby positive
perceptions of a person can yield negative consequences.
● The horn effect, closely tied to the halo effect, is the cognitive bias
whereby a single negative trait unduly shapes one’s opinion of
another.